


Ship in a Bottle

by Serindrana



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serindrana/pseuds/Serindrana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Callista finds a bottle. Havelock decides they should build a model in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ship in a Bottle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Smaragdina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smaragdina/gifts).



> Gorgeous art provided by [Neme](http://heronscry.tumblr.com)!
> 
>  

Callista nudges through the detritus at the river's edge with the tip of her shoe, moving aside weeds and the carcasses of fish and the odd bit of lumber. Something glints down among the pebbles, and she clears a space, expecting smoothly polished sea glass.

She finds a bottle.

It's empty, no childlike message stuffed inside, and it's dingy, but it's unbroken. After a moment, she crouches down and plucks it from the mess. It's big, bigger than a beer bottle or even most whiskey bottles, and the glass, where it's not crusted with muck, is clear.

Leaning out over the slimy banks, she dips it in the water and tries to shake it clean.

When she was a little girl, before she moved to Dunwall, she and her brother had walked the sea shore collecting shells and pretty pebbles, and they'd kept them in a bottle on a table between their beds. Perhaps Emily will be interested in the same. A pity, that most of what's around to collect is trash, but they can find something together.

She's just straightening up when she hears footsteps on the gravely bank behind her, whispers in the dried out grass, and she looks over her shoulder, expecting Samuel or Wallace or maybe even Corvo. Instead, she finds the admiral looking at her. As she turns fully towards him, his gaze drops to the bottle.

"There are plenty of those inside," he points out, his big hands clasped behind his back. "Less filthy."

"I know," she says, and climbs up the bank. He reaches out a hand as she passes by him, and she stops.

"May I?" he asks, and for a moment she thinks he's offering to walk her back to the pub. (Where does he think she'd go, if he wasn't watching?) Then she sees that he's looking at the bottle again.

She holds it out to him after a moment's thought.

He takes it, without gloves, and thumbs at the grime. "Good glass," he says after a moment. "And a good neck, not too wide but wide enough."

"Ah," she says, then clears her throat. "Excuse me, sir?"

He looks up as if surprised she's still there. "It would be a good candidate for housing a model ship. Though it's been a long time since I've made one."

"A model ship?" He offers the bottle to her, and so she takes it back. He clasps his hands behind him again.

"Yes. A ship in a bottle. It's... an old hobby of mine. Something to keep my dexterity up."

It's strange, to think of him as a dextrous man. He's big and blocky and, well, not the youngest or quickest person in the whole conspiracy. There's a faint something in his eyes, though.

She offers the bottle to him again.

"I was just going to fill it with rocks," she says, and he barks a laugh. Gingerly, he takes it from her again.

"I'll let you see when it's done," he offers.

She nods, then makes back for the pub.

* * *

 

The next morning, Havelock finds her with her head in her hands, sitting in one of the pub booths. Emily is hiding. Again. The lesson is at a standstill. When she sees his large, calloused hand on the table, she grimaces, expecting questions, a reprimand for not doing her job.

Instead, he says nothing, drums his fingers a little. Clears his throat.

She looks up.

"Yes?"

"... Are you... good with details?" he asks.

"Somewhat, yes. I suppose."

"Good," he says. "Come with me."

He doesn't say another word as they make their way upstairs, then to his room at the end of the hall. She's just considering asking what he means by details when she sees it: the bottle, cleaned and polished, lying on its side, and a mess of painted sticks and string inside and around it.

"It appears I'm not as dextrous as I used to be," he says, and tries to look proud and dignified as he doesn't meet her gaze.

She looks between him and the mess.

"Oh, I don't know if I could do this," she says. "I've built model ships before, but not in bottles-"

"Have you?" he asks, and he looks at her now with a strange eagerness.

"Whaling ships, mostly. Big ones, though, and out in the open." She flushes a little when he doesn't look away. "Just... a hobby." Callista is the first to look away, to approach his desk and shuffle through the bits and pieces he's accumulated. He must have been working all night. On a sudden impulse, she says, "I've always... dreamed of being a whaler, actually. Silly, I know. So I build the ships instead."

"You? A whaler?" She waits for the snort, the laugh, the condescending pat on the head. Instead, he is silent a moment, then says, "I could see it."

She looks back at him.

He's closer than she thought he'd be, and she swallows thickly. He's a big man, Farley Havelock, and intimidating, and very clearly dangerous. Still, she got this job because he knew her uncle and trusted her because of it. And he thinks she could have been a whaler, had she not been born a woman.

Havelock looks down at the bits of wood, spreads them out a little with a light touch. "I got a bit ahead of myself," he says.

"I don't know if I can put this together for you," she says.

"Would you be willing to try? I could tell you how it goes together."

"I should get back to teaching Miss Emily," she says, and takes a step back from the table. His hand catches her wrist, then releases as she tenses.

"Consider it. It would… be much appreciated. Besides, Martin is going to be insufferable if he sees this mess. I won't hear the end of it."

Callista looks down at her wrist, touches it lightly, thinks. Comes back around to _he thinks I could have been a whaler_. She wets her lips with a quick swipe of her tongue, then looks up at him, meets his gaze. "Tonight, after Emily is settled?"

"I look forward to it."

* * *

 

They sit up into the night, him with a pint of beer he periodically goes to refill, her with a small tumbler of whiskey she barely touches. She sits at the table, braced carefully, and follows his instructions to build the small boat.

"If the neck had been a little wider," he says when she's taking a break, in order to keep her hands from shaking, "I could have assembled it all except for the masts, rigged them so they would stand up under tension, and slid it in all together."

"That would have been considerably easier. And turned out nicer."

"It looks fine."

"Does not. Look at the join here and here," she says, leaning in and taking up the long, bent-nosed tweezers again, carefully gesturing. Havelock leans down, frowns, then shrugs.

"I see no problem."

She rolls her eyes while he can't see her.

"Tell me," he says, a little while later, "is your cousin, Thornton, still stationed near Tyvia?"

She goes utterly still, taken unaware by the wave of grief, fresher than most, that crashes into her. The riptide isn't as strong as it once was, and she fights her way to the surface with admirable speed and grace. "He's been dead these last four years, actually."

"… Ah," Havelock says, considering his beer with perhaps too much attention. "I'm- sorry."

"It's just my uncle and me now," she says, with a faint, thin smile.

"I'm glad that he still lives, at least."

They're silent a little longer. Callista is getting the hang of this, even if the late hour is threatening to make her hand tremble, her eyelids droop. She wants to get just a little more of the hull pieced together before calling it a night.

Eventually, Havelock clears his throat. "When I was a young man, I lost a brother. I… understand that pain, and how it never really goes away."

Very carefully, very slowly, Callista withdraws her tweezers and sets them aside, then looks up at Havelock - Farley - who has stood and is now looking down at her with something between pity, awkwardness, and- loneliness?

"It is a hard thing, to lose a brother," she says, softly. "… Were you the elder?"

"I was," he says, and his throat bobs as he swallows. His hand tightens around his glass for just a moment before he sets it aside.

"So was I," she says. She takes one last look at the model ship, then stands, smoothing down the front of her jacket and apron. "It's getting late," she says.

"St-" Farley starts to say, then stops himself. He takes a deep, slow breath. "I… appreciated your company. And assistance." He glances behind her, to the mostly shut door. And then he reaches out and takes her hand, lifts it to his lips. His late-night stubble scratches at her bare skin, and too late she realizes her gloves are still tucked into the strap of her apron. Her breath catches. Slowly, he lowers her hand, lets go, turns away and stares down at the model.

She should go. She should turn around, climb the stairs, navigate the walkway, crawl into her small bed. She should put on her gloves.

"Do you really think I could have been a whaler?" she asks instead, softly.


End file.
